In the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, part of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed. A replacement, costing at least $6 billion, is not expected until 2013 and the bridge was closed last week when a cable snapped.

In Seattle, the circa 1953 Alaskan Way Viaduct was badly damaged by a 2001 earthquake — but traffic continues to use it, despite a harrowing video simulation of what could await it in another tremblor. A multi-billion dollar tunnel replacement is not expected until 2015 at the earliest.

Thirteen people died in a 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse (pictured below) that happened after Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed millions for highway and bridge fixes.

Of course, the nation’s financial and corporate elite move ahead for or against the public interest, dragging along an ineffectual federal government the way a big dog pulls an outmatched human companion. But the big things, the public works and grand projects that distinguished America in the 20th century and helped ensure its rise to supremacy, seem nearly impossible.

This is brought home starkly by the worldwide recession. China is using stimulus to build high-speed rail (see below) and other 21st-century infrastructure. Europe is continuing to extend its lead in these areas. These nations are investing in their future, with projects that will enhance competitiveness and hedge against climate change, more scarce resources and higher energy prices.

America’s tax money has mostly gone into saving the profits of the big banks, rescuing minimum-level state school, road and social programs already starved by inadequate revenue, unemployment compensation and ineffectual tax cuts. It looks as most of the stimulus so far has merely saved teachers’ jobs from the axe — hardly a forward leaning strategy. Instead, it shows the stress on the public education system that helped bring the great American class into being.

In the Great Depression, the New Deal put millions to work building public works that are still in use. The federal government spent decades creating an air transportation system, including building airports and air-traffic control (sadly, to the detriment of what was once the world’s finest railway system). President Eisenhower famously established the Interstate Highway system (similarly short-changing the railroads), while Presidents Kennedy and Johnson led the nation to the Apollo 11 landing. Today it looks as if America will never be able to recreate such splendid examples of what a leading nation can build. Even great research facilities and universities we take for granted face shrinking budgets and a wave of competition from overseas.

Nor were the mid-20th century accomplishments out of the national character. From the Erie Canal to the transcontinental railroad and the great dam building of the reclamation era, America was a nation of builders. And of course this government action laid the foundation for the private sector to accomplish even more. By the 2000s, we were a nation of bubble-makers, with our building confined to extending the ugly and unsustainable sprawl Ponzi scheme.

The culprits are many. Among them: political gridlock, with Republicans squarely against infrastructure, except for certain exurban highway work; the NIMBY mentality in many locales; excessive studies, consulting and permitting; costly military obligations; the political power of entrenched interests determined to keep the status quo (e.g., the highway lobby is much more powerful than the constituency for rail) and the revolutionary reordering of our society to send ever more money into the hands of the financial elite, executive compensation and transnational corporations.

Whatever the reasons, the consequences run from the depressing to the grave. America is increasingly ill-prepared for the 21st century. We will pay the price one way or the other.